


Dead Robins Club

by RandomTexanReader



Category: Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Dead Robins Club, Teen & up for swearing and references to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25480735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomTexanReader/pseuds/RandomTexanReader
Summary: Jason and Damian bond over having been dead Robins. (/Really/ dead, brief clinical death doesn't count or they couldn't exclude anyone, and that's the whole point of a club in the first place).
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	1. Inauguration

Jason suddenly registered the figure crouching against the stone wall and was halfway into a back kick when he recognized Damian. " _JEEZ!_ " Dropping back onto his heels, Jason clutched his chest. "You're a creepy little bastard, you know that?"

Damian glared, then bent his scowling face back to the dozing cat on his lap, gently stroking its head and shoulders. "I thought you went home already."

"Yeah, well, I'm back." Walking over to where an avalanche of disassembled newspapers had engulfed the writing desk, Jason cursed Tim for the mess--more out of principle than any real irritation--and began digging through the newsprint landslide. "I left one of my notebooks here accidentally, I need it."

Damian didn't answer. After a moment he stood, taking the cat into his arms, and walked over to Jason.

"Going to help me look?" Jason glanced at the kid's face. "What is it, indigestion?"

Again, no answer.

Shrugging internally, Jason continued shoveling aside reams of newspaper. Tim probably had had a 'system.' Well, served him right for not keeping his workspace clear.

"Jason..." Damian finally said.

"That's me," Jason answered, managing to uncover one of the desk drawers.

"I have a question for you."

Jason shook his head, rummaging through the drawer. "You know the rules. Robin questions, ask Dick, manor questions, ask Alfred, case questions, ask Barbara or Tim."

"It's a death question."

Jason stopped. A sick, familiar feeling twisted his stomach as he looked at Damian. "I don't--" he began, then stopped again. 

Jason didn't answer death questions. It was one of the rules. He didn't like to remember what it had been like, didn't like to know what he would be willing to do to never go back there again. Didn't like to admit the pain before and the madness after, the terrors far worse than Johnathan Crane's crude pantomimes. Didn't like to face what had happened to him.

But Damian looked very small. And Jason remembered a blood-stained uniform.

He opened his mouth to try one more time, but Damian clicked his tongue and turned away. "Never mind." He went and sat in the desk chair in front of the computer, looking even more horribly small by doing so, still holding the cat. Jason looked at him, and then back at the writing desk. He did need that notebook.

Damian tried to duck away from the newspaper hat, but Jason had the element of surprise and successfully crowned him, looking haughtily down his nose at the kid from underneath his own hat. "Hear ye, hear ye," he announced. 

"Who are you talking to?" Damian grumbled, shoving the hat back off of his forehead in annoyance.

"Hear ye, hear ye," Jason announced again, louder. "This, the first official and sanctioned gathering of the club of dead robins, is now in session." He performed an elaborate bow with lots of hand flourishes. "This sacred and ancient trust-"

"This what?"

"This sacred and ancient trust," Jason repeated, "shall not be sullied by the ears of outsiders, nor yet by the casual conversation of its members. Its secrets are sacrosanct and must not-"

"What are you blathering about?"

Sighing, Jason sat down on the floor, crossing his legs. "Look. I don't like talking about it. But it happened to you too, and I guess that means I owe you something." 

Damian didn't say anything.

"Dick and Tim and the others, they don't.... I made the rule because I can't go over it again and again for their curiosity, or because they want to help, or because they feel sorry for me. And I'm not going to change it." He shrugged. "But you get it. So yeah. I'll answer your death questions."

Damian adjusted the newspaper hat again. "Why the newspaper?"

Jason grinned. "Because it's not a club unless you have hats."


	2. Midnight Snack

"Boy scout donuts," Jason explained, pulling the Pillsbury biscuit can from Dick's designated refrigerator drawer, clearly labeled "JASON KEEP OUT!!!"

Perched on the counter, Damian scowled. "There's plenty of food that Alfred left--"

"Ah-ah-ah," Jason waggled a saucepan at the kid. "That's good food. Midnight snacks have to be crappy food, that's the rule."

"It's 9:30 in the morning."

"You know what I mean." Pouring oil into the pan and flicking on the stove, Jason tossed the can at Damian. "Shape those biscuits into donut shapes." 

In one smooth movement Damian caught the can and slid off of the counter. Less smoothly, he popped the can open and pulled out some of the stretchy dough.

Jason got sugar, cinnamon, and a paper bag, and made an elaborate fuss about getting the proportions of his 'traditional spices' just right. (Sugar isn't a spice, Damian scoffed, Well it sure as hell ain't no meat, Jason shot back.) 

Damian had lost the battle with some of the dough, but the rest looked passably donut-shaped and Jason quickly dropped one loop after another into the sizzling oil, gingerly flipping with a fork as each one reached a deep golden-brown.

Bruce stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and sharply dressed. He blinked owlishly at the boys. "Not asleep?" he asked.

"Not that it's any of your business," Jason sniffed, expertly flipping a finished donut out of the saucepan and onto a paper towel-covered plate he had made Damian prepare, "but I needed a snack and Damian's making sure I don't steal any of the silverware."

"Hrm," Bruce agreed, patting Damian's pajama-clad shoulder absent-mindedly and pouring himself a mug of stale ice-cold leftover coffee from the pot before shambling out towards the front door, grumbling about a meeting. Jason pulled a face at his retreating back, then turned his attention back to the donuts, showing Damian how to shake them in the paper bag so that they were properly coated with the traditional spices. 

Popping one of the donuts into his mouth as he switched off the stove, Jason split the rest between himself and Damian, wrapping them loosely in napkins. Teaching Damian another cardinal rule of midnight snacks, 'always leave clean-up for the morning,' Jason then led his mentee into one of the upstairs sitting rooms. 

Damian perched in an armchair while Jason flopped down on a couch and they ate the donuts in silence, catching the falling sugar, cinnamon, and crumbs in their greasy napkins.

After they finished, Damian patted his stomach reflectively.

"Sits like a brick, doesn't it," Jason grinned. "That's how you know it works. Takes all the blood from your brain, makes it easier to sleep." He folded up his napkin with the crumbs inside it and slid it into his pants pocket. After a moment's thought, Damian put his into the front pocket of his pajama shirt. 

Jason clasped his hands behind his head, looking at the boy. "Did you want to talk about it?"

Damian shook his head slightly, pulling his feet close to his body and hugging his knees.

Jason waited.

"I dreamt I was killing everyone." Damian's voice was small. 

Jason said nothing.

"Dick came in downstairs and I stabbed him, and I kept on stabbing him and I was laughing and then I went upstairs and found Father and--" Damian's voice broke. "And everyone, part of me was screaming and trying to stop myself, but the other part was laughing and liked it and--" he buried his face in his arms.

"Not your fault," Jason said gently. "It's just your brain working through shit, it's organ function." 

Damian sniffed.

"Look. Feelings are in the brain. And the brain don't know shit."

"Actually-"

"It don't know shit," Jason repeated firmly, "it's an organ, it's just doing its own thing. Yours and mine, they stopped for a good time and got restarted. It needs to run all the checks, fire off everything, make sure the circuits are still there. That's all that's happening." Then a little softer, "Your brain isn't you."

"But I enjoyed it."

"Then why are you so torn up?"

"I don't want to enjoy it!" Damian thrust his fists into his eyes, rubbing at them furiously. "I can't--I don't want to be like THEM. But I think I am already, and maybe I'm just pretending and the dreams, that's who I really am, that's who actually came back."

"That's bullshit."

"Then why did I like it?"

"Look." Jason jammed his hands into his jacket pockets, wishing that Alfred wouldn't find out and be disappointed at him if he smoked a cigarette in the manor. "You know how when you're on the edge of something and you think 'What if I just jump,' or you see a car coming and you think 'What if I step in front of it,' or other stuff like that?"

Damian nodded.

"That's just your brain too. It's like it goes, 'Hey, what if you did this,' and you go 'What the hell, no, that would be super fucked up,' and your brain goes 'Haha, yeah it would be, wouldn't it.' It's just checking that the limits are still there."

Damian didn't seem convinced.

"Hey, listen. I know you're super badass, raised by assassins and all that, but I know something else. You're only torn up about this because you've got a big heart, and you want to be a good person. Dreams don't count."

Damian nodded again. He was quiet for a moment. Finally he asked, hesitantly, "Do you mind staying in the room until I fall asleep?"

"That was the plan, kiddo," Jason answered, reaching for the battered and dog-eared paperback novel that lived on the end table. 

As he read, he listened to Damian's breathing slowly even out into the quiet, steady rhythm of sleep. 

The late morning was warm and the manor was quiet. The book was one that Jason knew well, and eventually he put it down.

Watching Damian slumber, Jason began to giggle. Trying to keep quiet, he fumbled in the couch cushions and pulled out the crowbar that had been hiding there. Smothering his giggles with a gloved hand, he carefully crept over to where Damian slept, curled up in the arm chair. He raised the crowbar high. Adjusted his grip. And brought it crashing down into Damian's skull. Laughing, he swung again and and again and again, laughing and laughing and laughing and--

Jason jerked awake with a gasp, heart pounding. Panting, he clutched the couch cushions, forcing himself to feel the texture of the fabric, his weight pressing down, the warmth of his socks, the rise and fall of his chest.

His breathing calmed, and he looked over at Damian, curled up safe and sound in the chair. It was funny how innocent even Damian looked while asleep.

Getting up and pulling off his jacket, Jason carefully draped it over the kid and then headed out of the room, stretching.

It was too early for a drink, but maybe some coffee. 

And a donut.


End file.
